This invention relates to the field of floor pullers for straightening bent members, particularly bent portions of auto bodies.
Floor pullers are used in auto body repair shops to pull bent portions of a damaged auto body while it is being held and clamped to a supporting bench. The floor puller is moved to a desired location facing the damaged part of the auto body, an anchor chain is connected between the floor puller and an anchor post or ring in the floor of the shop, and a pull chain is connected between the bent member and the mechanism of the floor puller which exerts the pulling force usually powered by a hydraulic pump or similar power source.
Prior art floor pullers include such things as pulleys and levers as part of the pulling mechanism which besides being cumbersome and expensive impose excessive force on pivot pins and pulley shafts. They are subject to excessive wear and breakage. They also are unable to pivot and rotate while a bent part is being pulled to continually adjust to a true straight line between the part being straightened and the direction being faced by the pulling mechanism. A typical prior art floor puller includes a pair of spaced apart, upwardly extending beams having pulleys rotatably mounted in between on pulley shafts supported by the pair of upright beams. The pull chain extends around the pulleys to a drive mechanism powered by a hydraulic pump. The pulling mechanism is not able to rotate about the longitudinal axis of the upright beams, nor can two separate pulling mechanisms be mounted on the same support member. If two pull chains are needed for pulling at different angles, two separate floor pullers of this prior art design must be used.
The floor puller in accordance with the present invention is able to solve these problems. The pulling mechanism including the power drive mechanism is free to both rotate on a vertical axis and pivot on a horizontal axis to continually orient itself in a straight line with the direction of pull from the connection to the bent part. No pulleys or levers are needed. And two pulling mechanisms in accordance with the present invention may be mounted and used on the same single floor puller. The detail construction which enable accomplishment of these features is described herein below.